Though the government funds will lead to clearance of pending salaries on Monday, the civic bodies have pointed out that, contrary to court orders, a large chunk of funds has come with riders that they have to be used in the health and education sectors. A senior official from east corporation said that the entire Rs 632 crore allocated to them cannot be used to clear salary and pension backlogs. “A part of the funds come with the rider that they can’t be used for paying salaries and pensions with Rs 106 crore being allotted for education alone. While the Fifth DFC is applicable from 2016, this money is only for 2018-19. The court case is about arrears from 2011 till 2016. What happens to the pending Rs 10,000 crore?” the official asked. The issue of possible recovery of excess funds has been rebuffed by the corporations. An official from the finance department of north corporation termed the threat as scare tactics being used by the government to force them to withdraw the court case. “The issue of Fourth DFC arrears still remains. They can’t unilaterally take away our rightful share in taxes,” the official added. East Delhi mayor Bipin Bihari said that the funds have been released by the AAP government as a last resort to mislead HC. “The court has not accepted their Fifth DFC argument and instead asked them to clear the dues first. Out of the Rs 600 crore released, Rs 200 crore is for plan heads and not salaries. We will file a contempt of court case if the Fourth DFC arrears are not released,” he added. North mayor Adesh Gupta too said that the affidavit is wrong and allocations are not excessive if plan head allocations are taken into account.

The confusion over the allocation of funds has been created by merging plan head allocations of education, health, urban development, etc, with the DFC tax share. “Under the Third DFC, we were getting 10.5% of the tax share. The Fourth DFC recommended 12.5% taxes divided in two equal portions. While 6.25% was to be given to the financially strained north and east corporations, the remaining amount was for all five local bodies based on their area and population,” an official explained. “Plan fund allocations in education and health sectors, which were earlier completely separate components, have now been removed. The funds for these sectors will now be made a part of these devolution allocations,” the official added.